Courting Magpies
by Lerayl
Summary: Dick Gumshoe discovers the complications inherent in trying to court a girl as passionately selfless as Maggey Byrde.


Dick Gumshoe was not the most intuitive of folks around. Indeed, anyone who had maintained contact with him for a span of time meeting or exceeding five minutes could tell you of this fact quite well. Dick Gumshoe himself, in some of his more lucid periods of self-awareness, would in fact be more than willing to testify as to this himself--armed with a sheepish grin and a casual rub to the back of his head. But most would also admit that Dick Gumshoe also had his own bumbling kind of charm--a force mysterious in its power to successfully keep him employed as a detective in the Los Angeles police force, despite holding a record number of screw-ups and pay reductions in the many years he had been serving.

In addition to matters of salary, 'bumbling charm', Dick Gumshoe had discovered, seemed to be of little to no help in matters of courtship, women, and the courtship of women. In many ways, Dick Gumshoe liked to imagine himself as an experienced, worldly sort of fellow. Sure, as was to be expected of his age, he'd loved and lost and been burnt by a girl now and then--sometimes literally. The ensuing hospital bills had certainly been problematic, if nothing else.

But Dick Gumshoe was not one to let himself turn hardened and cynical simply because of a few bad eggs in a sea of many fish--or however it was that the saying went. So it was with a great, albeit nervous, boot-shaking sort of gusto that he strode into the office, clutching a collection of hand-picked flowers at arm's length in a decisive march towards a certain cubicle. His clattering footsteps failing to get attention, he cleared his throat in what he hoped was a subtle manner--hey, it was possible that every head within a range of thirty feet immediately turned in his direction for some _other_ reason.

All, of course, except the girl in the cubicle, who was thoroughly engaged in her work, hammering out responses to help requests on her keyboard with mad, feverish sort of passion.

"Hey, Maggey. Maggey?"

Maggey's fingers paused a few inches above her keyboard, and she swiveled in her chair to face him. A strand of loose hair was caught in her mouth. Gumshoe barely had the time to mentally spell out the first two letters of _cute_ in classical internal monologue form before she let out an audible gasp, and clapped her hands together in delight.

"Oh, wow, Detective! Are those real flowers? They're so beautiful!"

All good signs so far, he figured. No screaming, slapping, crying, flamethrowers, or restraining orders waving in his face yet.

"I, uh, just... thought they'd brighten things up some, you know?" He shuffled his feet and eyed the floor with vague interest, thrusting them out towards her. "So, uh..."

When he noticed that what felt like quite a while had passed and his fingers were still firmly clenched around the flowers, he looked up again, brow knitted together in puzzlement. Maggey was talking, words tumbling over one another in their breathlessness, hands still clasped at her heart.

"You know, you're absolutely right, sir!" she said, excitement sparking to life in her eyes. "There's far too much grey around these offices! This really should be remedied immediately. After all, we're servants of the people, aren't we? How can we expect them to place their trust in us in when we offer them our assistance in such a gloomy setting? Thank you for the inspiration!" And she shook his hand with all the fervor she could muster--sending a dainty little daisy head fluttering to the office carpet--before streaking off to the nearest floral shop, and leaving the hapless Dick Gumshoe still holding his little bouquet of flowers, the tag scrawled with _For Maggey_ hanging off its tassel.

"Ah," he said, befuddled. "Drat."

---

The next day, when Dick Gumshoe clocked into work, the entire department was lined with flowers. Several people were hiding their noses behind handkerchiefs, battling the effect of Maggey's well-meant spread of deadly pollen against their allergies. Quite a few were gathered around the employee comment box to register formal complaints.

None of this phased Detective Gumshoe; his mind was too absorbed into the details of his second, more refined strategy to approach her. There could have been any numbers of reasons why the flowers had resulted in a spectacular show of miscommunication. Flowers were a pretty broad symbol, all things considered. After all, he'd heard that different flowers could mean any number of different things. Maybe he'd just been unlucky and unwittingly picked wrong, and 'daisy' somehow translated to 'jump up and run away fast'.

This time he was prepared, though. Tucked under his arm was his secret weapon--a box of chocolates, bound with no less than a red satin ribbon.

It had been a pretty pricey investment; he'd have to stretch out a couple weeks' worth of food to make up for the deficit. But no matter what his income, he wanted to show Maggey his high opinion of her properly. He glanced around the premises, hoping to catch a glimpse of those telltale feathers or the sound of her cheerful, rapid-fire voice. But there was no sign of her, which meant she was likely on the field or was engaged in something in another department; so he had to settle for keeping an eye out from his desk with the gift sitting beside him, waiting with him for its recipient.

They waited. And waited. And continued to wait.

As more time passed and nearly half the day had ticked by with no sign of Maggey, he was starting to get worried. Besides, he was pretty sure the chocolates had now melted into a sludgy mess in the box. Frustrated and too distracted to focus on any reports of trivial theft or murder, Gumshoe stood up from his seat and tucked the box under his arm once again, determined to do a second sweep of the grounds. He cast a discreet look back and forth to make sure no higher ups were keeping a particularly close eye on him, and began making his way to the forensics lab first. It was as good a guess as any.

"Sir!" Gumshoe jumped; it was Maggey's voice, sharp and scolding behind him. "What are you doing, sir? You know it's quite nearly lunchtime, don't you?" He spun around, and she was waving a finger in her face, quite cross. "There's no need to be greedy and sneak off to start gorging on candies ahead of time! Really, sir!"

"Oh, uh, no, pal, no! You've got it all wrong." He shook his head wildly, throwing up his hands in a futile attempt to prove his innocence. "These aren't for me, pal! They're for-- they're for--" He was stammering all of a sudden, tripping over his words with his mind going blank and that was not in the least little bit a part of the plan-- "...someone else."

Maggey's mouth fell open, and she covered it in both hands in surprise. She stood frozen like that for nearly half a minute.

"Uh... Maggey?"

To Gumshoe's alarm, tears started building at the edges of her eyes, magnified in her glasses.

"You... you got them as a treat for the office! That's so wonderful." She sniffled loudly, and pulled her glasses off her nose to wipe her tears, which was likely the reason she was oblivious to the growing expression of horror on Gumshoe's face. "I'm so sorry, sir! I... I'd gotten you all wrong! I'm so ashamed of myself..." She hung her head, replacing her spectacles, but not meeting his gaze. "I know... this won't make it up to you, but I can at least save you some trouble by distributing out the candy to everyone for you! Don't worry, you won't have to bother going around everywhere! I've got it all taken care of, and I'll make sure everyone knows who it is that's treating us so wonderfully!"

Gumshoe weakly raised a hand in protest, but she had already shot off like a rocket, hoisting the box over her head and loudly announcing the candy distribution to the entire office.

_Drat_ didn't quite seem to cover it this time. He racked his brain, but no other words he could think of could sufficiently express the funny, twisted, sinking feeling in his gut. So Gumshoe settled for a very disappointed and pouting sort of silence, instead.

---

The third time's a charm. Or that was how it was _supposed_ to work, anyway.

Detective Gumshoe repeated this mantra in his head as he stepped through the doors and into the department of criminal affairs. The strategy, this time, bore no decorated box and no satin ribbon, but was lying prone in the left pocket of his tattered coat.

It wasn't what you'd call expensive. Though not exactly proud of it, he couldn't afford another huge blow to his budget after he had spent so much on the fancy chocolates. The truth was he had pulled it out of the Crackerjack box he had been snacking from in a fit of despair the night before, but he hoped it would be the thought that counted. He hoped even harder that Maggey just wouldn't notice.

This time around, as he made his way to his desk, he caught notice of Maggey immediately. She seemed to be in an argument with the chief detective about the floral health hazards she had thoughtlessly brought into the offices the day before yesterday. Gumshoe eyed them over his stacks of unfiled paperwork, and by all appearances after a heated debate the chief finally just gave up and let Maggey have her way. She was nothing if not persistent--it was one of the great things about her Gumshoe had listed in his abandoned attempts at writing late night poetry.

He started to clear his throat as she went by, then remembered how successfully that had gone over the last time, and decided to just stand and tap her shoulder to get her attention. She stopped and tilted her head towards him curiously.

"Hey, uh… look over here a second, pal."

He fumbled in his pocket for a few minutes before pulling out the little aluminum ring, small and plain in the palm of his hand. Maggey bent over to peer at it with great interest.

"Wow, that's absolutely beautiful, sir! Whose is it?"

"Um..." Why was this always the hard part? It would have been really nice if she was considerate enough to be more selfish, instead of making him explain this kind of thing.

His thoughts were interrupted as Maggey made a sudden exclamation, eyes wide and full of revelation.

"Oh, you know! Officer Jenkins was telling me this morning about how she had lost her ring! She was so distressed about it, too, sir, it was awful! Apparently it was a keepsake from her late mother. I was driven nearly to tears, hearing the story of her loss! Do you think this could be it!?"

He was dumbfounded. "Actually... wait, what?"

"But I bet you knew that already and found it for her. That's just wonderful! I'll take it back over to her right away." She snatched it from him in a flash, and Gumshoe saw that it would have been a perfect fit on her. "Always watching out for us, aren't you, sir? Really, you're such an inspiration to us all!"

And off she went, leaving Gumshoe vehemently wishing a plague upon the house of Officer Jenkins.

---

It was a desperate measure, he knew, standing in the office of the High Prosecutor with no formal news to report. But by this time, Dick Gumshoe found himself a rather desperate man, and so here he was, eyeing the fancy suit framed on the wall in order in an attempt to partially deflect the throughly unamused air of the office's chief occupant.

"Mr. Edgeworth?" This _was _a rather awkward situation, Gumshoe thought, fiddling with his tie. Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, for his part, failed to so much as look up from his paperwork.

"What is it, Detective?"

He gulped. It was do or die.

"I was just wondering, pal... if I could ask you of some, uh... personal advice."

The sound of pen scratching against paper gave the briefest of pause.

"No."

Gumshoe squawked in alarmed protest. He'd been expecting a rebuke, but this was too much even for him. He brought his hands together in a pleading gesture. "Please, sir! You're the only one I can go to now! I just don't know what to do!"

Miles Edgeworth let out a very long sigh, but finally set down the pen. "What is it?"

"Well, er..." What was it, indeed. Now that he had gotten to this point, it struck Gumshoe that perhaps he ought to have rehearsed how exactly he intended to present his dilemma beforehand. "Um, you know. How do I put this... it's a complicated situation and all."

"Get to the point and stop wasting my time, Detective."

"Right! Yes sir!" Easier said than done. He hesitated a moment more before saying, slowly: "Let's, uh, say I've got a friend who maybe kind of sort of--well let's say there's this girl."

Edgeworth stared. His hand was starting to slide back towards the pen's direction.

"Wait, Mr. Edgeworth! Hear me out! Y-you know what I mean, right? Please, I really am at a total loss!" Before Edgeworth could reprimand him--his expression communicating that he clearly intended to--Gumshoe plunged ahead in a fit of daring he didn't know he possessed, and spoke on, cutting him off.

"So what I'm saying is-- there's this girl, and... well... she's really great, pal, a fantastic woman. How would, uh--how would you go about letting her know all of that, you think? If it were her, what would you do to let her know that you think she's really, really special?"

Silence. Gumshoe felt a bead of sweat trickle down his temple under the force of it.

"Detective Gumshoe, are you asking me to give you advice on your love life?" It was that flat, unamused tone of voice that Gumshoe had come to associate with the threat of yet another pay cut. He swallowed. His tie, by this point, was nearly entirely undone.

"Maybe. No. Not really! Just, uh... maybe just a little bit. But sir, how _would_ you go about that? You know I'm, well, not the best with words, so--please, sir, I'm at the end of my rope!"

Edgeworth sighed again, inclining his head slightly and pressing his knuckles against his forehead. He was eyeing the flat surface of his desk in something that looked suspiciously like temptation, though Gumshoe couldn't imagine what exactly could be so tempting about it.

"I would imagine," the prosecutor said, speaking very slowly, "if you want to compliment someone, you would start by complimenting them, Detective."

It was a lightbulb going off in Gumshoe's brain.

"You're right!" he exclaimed, slamming a fist into the palm of his other hand. "You're absolutely right. Why didn't I think of that?"

It was the kind of simple brilliance one could only expect from Mr. Edgeworth. It seemed obvious now that ought to have consulted him in the first place.

"Thanks, Mr. Edgeworth! I'm real glad I went to you after all, pal! I'll go try that out right now."

Enthusiasm renewed, Gumshoe turned and hurried out of the office, certain he'd run into Maggey again soon to try out the most sage suggestion. Behind him, through the door left ajar in his wake, Miles Edgeworth slowly shook his head in something like marvel, and returned to his work.

---

"Hey! Hey, Maggey!"

Maggey turned around, blinking once before flashing the usual radiant smile that accompanied her salute. "Detective! Good afternoon!" She folded her arms, frowning. "I showed that ring to Officer Jenkins, but, well..." She frowned. "She just started crying harder, saying I was making fun of her. I guess it wasn't hers after all… I felt awfully bad. I told her we'd keep looking, though, you and me! I told her the best detective on the force would be on it, sir! So let's not let her down!"

Gumshoe found that his tongue, which had been vigorously practicing all manner of compliments to pay to the small woman, was abruptly stuck in his mouth, and his confidence from just seconds ago evaporating into a familiar pile of mush in his stomach. Maggey's frown deepened.

"Um, are you all right, sir? You suddenly look a bit ill. Have you been overworking again?"

He blurted out the first thing that came into his head.

"You're a great woman, Maggey. I mean… you're really great."

She blinked, then beamed, surprised and pleased. "Oh, thank you so much, sir! So are you!"

Somehow, Gumshoe didn't think that this was quite the reaction he was going for. Flabbergasted, he tried again.

"No, really, you're great."

"No, sir, _you're_ really great!"

"No, uh--"

It was one of his rare flashes of intuition that instructed him, quite firmly, to give it up. "Nevermind, Maggey." He had to try very hard not to punctuate the words with a sigh. But she was still looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue talking, eyes shining with their familiar sparkle. He awkwardly fished around for some other topic of conversation.

"Hey, by the way… what did you do end up doing with that thing?"

"'That thing'...? Oh, do you mean the ring, sir? I gave it to the local charity, along with a few other things I'd been holding onto. That's where I was, you know." The corners of her lips tugged further upwards. "I hope someone gets it there who really loves it! Someone who thinks it's as beautiful as I do."

There was an almost unsettling kind of consistency in the sheer amount of ways Maggey Byrde managed to render Dick Gumshoe speechless.

He was pretty sure that what he ought to be feeling right now, in response to what she had just told him, was more disappointment and frustration at yet another failure to get his attentions across. But right now, looking at her brilliant smile, Gumshoe found that most any negative emotion that he had ever felt was being eclipsed in his awe at the sheer level of kindness and generosity in her bright spirit.

"Ack!" Maggey squeaked, looking at her watch. "Oh, no, I'm late; I told the Chief I'd only be ten minutes at the most! I have to clock back in right away!" And for the fourth time in three days, she sped away from him, leaving him watching her retreating form as she pressed her hands to her head to keep her hat from toppling off in her haste.

She really was great, he thought, and despite his utter lack of success in letting her know how very much he meant that, Gumshoe found himself smiling at that fact. She really was really, really great.

---

Dick Gumshoe had been fast asleep when the surprisingly timid knock had come at his door. Ordinarily, he deeply resented all forms of interruptions to his evening nap, but found himself oddly compelled to drag himself up, make sure he was decent, and answer the door with an enormous yawn. The yawn was cut short when he saw who was standing antsily just beyond the door of his apartment.

"Maggey?"

"Good evening, sir!" The familiar, rigid salute. "I'm sorry to interrupt you outside of working hours, sir! May I come in? It's--a bit chilly out here."

She wasn't dressed in uniform; instead, she was in a rather modest set of faded jeans topped with the simple Blue Badger sweatshirt he recalled she had faithfully bought as part of the fundraising campaign to help educate the common populace about crime. Gumshoe had only seen her in it a few times; she was the only person he knew whom he thought could make it look striking.

"Oh, yeah, sure!" he said, realizing he was forgetting himself. "Yeah, come on in, pal."

He stepped aside and let her pass into the flimsy apartment. If she had any thoughts to give on the impoverished state of his way of living, she didn't give voice to them.

"So... did you need something, Maggey? Something you need help with?"

"Oh, no!" She shook her head vigorously. "Nothing like that, sir. I'm not in any trouble. Well--not any more trouble than I always am, anyway."

"Yeah? That's good, I guess." Despite how pleased he was to see her, Gumshoe was frowning. He could not add this situation up with all the strength of his finely honed detective skills. "So... then why'd you stop by? I mean, not that it isn't great to see you."

Maggey looked deep in thought for a moment, before reaching around herself to pull something out of her back pocket.

"Here!" she said, flashing two standard issue notecards at him. "Take a look at these tickets, sir."

Scrawled on both of the 'tickets' was a name, a signature, and _fifteen dollar value,_ all in smudged pencil. He recognized the name as that of a certain restaurant. It was a pretty shabby place he'd frequented more than once--the majority of their menu composed of cheap ramen and nearly-as-cheap hamburgers, served with a standard sized soda and a bathroom lined with fairly troublesome graffiti.

"What are these, coupons?" He asked, rubbing his eyes. "Wow, that's... what, thirty bucks total? How did you end up with these?"

"Oh, how do I _start?_" she said, fiddling uneasily with the frames of her glasses. "Well, sir, the story goes something like this. I was waiting around to meet with a friend just outside this tiny little restaurant, when there was this sudden commotion!" Her eyes widened, recreating the spirit of the scene. "People were panicking everywhere! It took me a few seconds to catch on to what was happening, but somebody inside was having this awful choking ordeal with a fishbone!"

Huh. He didn't even know that place served fish to begin with. Gumshoe made a mental note of it as he nodded to show Maggey he was paying attention.

"And, well, what else could I have done, sir? I jumped in as quick as I could! I was really nervous, sir, but I knew I couldn't just step aside, especially given our training. I was afraid I didn't have the upper body strength to perform the Heimlich maneuver properly, but luckily the person choking was just a small boy. So I managed to pop it out of him." She flashed a sheepish, but proud sort of smile, and Gumshoe caught the motion of her foot tracing circles on the floor out of the corner of his eye.

"Wow, Maggey, that was really great of you. Real heroic, pal. Nothing less of the people on my force!"

"Th-that's right, sir! You're absolutely right! It's our duty as officers of the law and defenders of the people!" Her fists bunched up, making tiny punching motions at the air. But it didn't take long for her to deflate, shoulders sagging. "Only, well... in my rush to get to the boy, I knocked some of the cooking equipment over, and... started a bit of a fire."

"Y-you're kidding."

"N-no... but of course I took responsibility to pay for the damages! I mean, what kind of girl do you think I am!?" He opened his mouth, without thinking, to answer _a fantastic one,_ but she cut him off with a contemplative fold of the arms, turning her head to the side to continue the story.

"But it didn't turn out so badly. The owner of the place said he knew I meant well, even if I've probably ruined his business, so before he's bankrupt for good he gave me a couple of tickets for a free dinner at the place. He said to invite a friend if I wanted."

"Is that right, pal?"

"R-right! I mean, right, that is right. Well, I was thinking and thinking and thinking of what to do with the extra..." Maybe he was imagining it, but he thought he saw a hint of red color Maggey's cheeks, matching the feathers she always pinned to her uniform. "And, well, no matter how I tried to get around it, I kept thinking back to all of the wonderful things you've been doing lately to make the world a little brighter around us! The flowers, trying to help Officer Jenkins, bringing chocolates for everyone! Through all of that, I was so touched by your generous heart, sir. So..." The flush of red became more prominent, and she fiddled again with her glasses. "...I really could think of no one I'd like better to share a nice dinner with than you, sir."

Gumshoe blinked, and realized one of the tickets was being pressed forcibly into his hands. Slowly registering what she had just said, he couldn't be bothered pretending to suppress the amazed grin beginning to spread across his face.

"Sure, Maggey," he said. "I'd love to go."

He took the ticket, enveloping her smaller hand in his as he did so. She didn't pull away.

It was funny, really, he thought, how things had a way of working out in the end after all.


End file.
